After the Last Border:Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America

Since the demonstrations on Friday, statues of Assad and his father had been pulled down in Daraa and more had been killed. On Monday, Khassem took his mother out of Daraa for the day to a beautiful lake, a place of peace for the family. He then returned to Damascus on Monday night.

On Wednesday night, Hasna and her family were awakened by the cut of electricity, gun fire, and explosions. Her neighbor, a veterinarian, was attending to the victims and she and Jebreel assisted him. It was a scene of horror. The next morning, soldiers came to her home and took the men away, including Jebreel, Yusef, and the veterinarian. When Khassem heard of the attack on Daraa, he cursed Assad. As a result, he was taken to prison the next day.

After their first week in Austin, Mu Naw and Saw Ku began English classes. While Mu Naw loved these classes, Saw Ku did not enjoy them and found them difficult. More families came from Myanmar, including Saw Ku’s brother and his wife. Soon, there was a “tiny diaspora” (80) of Mu Naw’s people who took English classes together.

Given his frustration with the classes, Saw Ku took a job cleaning in a hotel. Unfortunately, the family’s government stipend ended when he started working. It was very difficult to make ends meet economically, with the family forced to choose between food and making phone calls to loved ones. Mu Naw’s nausea became increasingly worse and she did not have the funds to visit a doctor. Crying often, Mu Naw realized that she was pregnant. Unable to afford another mouth to feed, Mu Naw and Saw Ku felt that their only option was to terminate the pregnancy. No one would help Mu Naw get an abortion and she felt very alone.

All the males between the ages of 12 and 60, including Laila’s husband Malek, had been taken in the government’s raid. In the afternoon, some men, including Jebreel, returned. He told Hasna that they were taken to a soccer field and the protesters were shot dead. As time passed, it became clear that Yusef and Malek had either been killed or in the group arrested and taken to Damascus. Laila and her son, Hamad, moved back with her parents.

Hasna’s neighbor, whose son worked for the government, warned Hasna that an X had been placed on her door. She feared raids on the homes of others. After hiding her valuables, namely gold, and cooking extra food, Hasna and her children went to her neighbor’s house for safety. Jabreel remained behind and hid. Tanks arrived in the night and there were explosions; soldiers went from house to house. However, they did not find Jebreel and took nothing from Hasna’s home. Daraa, though, was under siege with armed soldiers patrolling.

Positions in the American immigration debate solidified in the 1880s. Restrictionists, led by the Democrats, sought national quotas and limited admissions, while liberalizers, led by the Republicans, wanted more open immigration policies. The liberalizers were aligned with Emma Lazarus’s poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. In 1882, the restrictionists scored a victory with the Chinese Exclusion Act, which limited admissions based on ethnicity. However, the liberalizers were able to defeat other such attempts initially.

As the numbers of immigrants soared to 15 million in the period from 1900 to 1914, the “restrictionists” won public favor. They paired economic arguments with racist ones and stoked fears of immigrants taking jobs and changing American culture. Two immigration laws were passed in 1917 and 1924, which greatly limited immigration of all but northern Europeans who were literate and upper-class. The 1924 Act was ground in outright racism. With the lack of jobs in the Great Depression, anti-immigrant sentiment held. In the early years of World War II, the US subscribed to a “better safe than sorry” (98) approach, which resulted in the refusal to accept Jewish refugees and the establishment of detention centers for Japanese Americans.

However, in the 1940s, public opinion shifted to favor humanitarian investments, including the resettlement of refugees. World War II exposed the human cost of the restrictive policies.

With no information forthcoming about the fate of Yusef and Malek, Hasna took some solace in the fact that their bodies were not returned with the others who had been killed. She befriended a soldier, Fahad al-Homsi, in hopes that she might gain some information. This angered her daughter Laila but worked; al-Homsi told her that Yusef, Malek, and the other 17 men from the area were alive and being held in a Damascus prison. Al-Homsi later gave Hasna a tip that a bus would be coming with Yusef, Malek, and the others. When they returned, there was a celebration with much food. However, Hasna knew that their safety was short-lived and that she would need to get her family out of Syria.

While Malek and Yusef were in prison, Laila participated in a protest. Hasna ran and grabbed her before soldiers could kill her. When soldiers went to neighbors describing her, they did not identify her. One girl, who disliked Laila, told al-Homsi of her identity. He then went to Hasna’s home and said it was clear that the girl made a false statement. Laila then beat the girl and all neighbors boycotted that family’s grocery store. Hasna became known as a lioness, doing whatever was necessary to protect her children.

With more Karen families living nearby, Mu Naw befriended Meh Bu, who was educated and spoke good English. As the daughter of a pariah at the refugee camp, Mu Naw was pleased to have such an impressive friend. Mu Naw’s mother was shunned by others because she disrespected her husband and ultimately left him and remarried.

One day, Mu Naw, who was struggling with severe nausea from the pregnancy, came home to find a note on her apartment door from the manager. The manager claimed incorrectly that Mu Naw owed money. She confronted the manager, who initially ignored her but then agreed to meet with her the following Monday. When Mu Naw went to enlist the help of Meh Bu for the meeting, Meh Bu refused and called Mu Naw lazy for not learning English. Finding Mu Naw in tears later, Saw Ku encouraged her to handle the matter herself, which she did. The couple decided to keep the baby, with Saw Ku reminding Mu Naw of her strengths. They would find a way to make ends meet.

In a flashback, Mu Naw returned to Myanmar with her great-grandmother, who died shortly thereafter. She was sent to live with her father’s cousin, who treated her cruelly for three years. At that point, she encountered a friend who told her that her mother was at the Mae La Camp. Crossing the border with the friend, she went to her mother’s hut. Her mother, who was remarried and had a baby daughter, was happy to see her. Mu Naw loved her sister but had anger for her mother and her new husband. Spending her time away from her mother’s hut, she wanted to distinguish herself from her scandalous mother.

Malek and Laila moved to Ramtha, Jordan, a small city directly across the border from Daraa. Others were fleeing Hasna’s neighborhood as well. One day, soldiers came to Hasna’s home with guns drawn. She feared that they would kill Yusef, who was upstairs and had been suffering with nightmares from his time in prison. Upon discovering Khassem’s military coat in the closet, they left the family peacefully. Yusef fled to Jordan soon thereafter.

Daraa was under siege, with civilians being killed. Instead of ending the protests, the government was enraging people throughout the country. At school, Rana witnessed a motorcyclist blow himself up at a checkpoint. Gunfire ensued, with a bullet just missing her. Hasna ran to the school and took Rana with her. They could hear people being killed nearby and took refuge with a family who did not know them. Later that night, they returned home. Jebreel, relieved, resolved to move Rana to Jordan.

With bruises and hollow eyes (134), Khassem returned home after three months in prison. Jebreel secured a false civilian identity card for Khassem, who then fled to Jordan. All Hasna’s children were safely out of Syria, as Amal and her family had already left. Al-Homsi “defected publicly from the Syrian army” (135). Some soldiers were creating the Free Syria Army and officially beginning a civil war. Al-Homsi was killed and Hasna mourned him like a son. Finally, Hasna prepared to leave Daraa. Since Jebreel was remaining, she cooked him lots of food and said a painful goodbye.

At a community church, Mu Naw met Jane, a retired woman who offered to drive her to doctor’s visits throughout her pregnancy. Mu Naw appreciated the air-conditioned car and became close with Jane. At one of the doctor’s visits, Mu Naw and Saw Ku learned that they were having a boy. Jane and other volunteers at the community center had a baby shower for the couple, which pleased Mu Naw.

When Mu Naw went into labor, Jane drove her and Saw Ku to the hospital. Jane had also helped Mu Naw successfully file the paperwork for Medicaid. The couple named their healthy baby boy Saw Doh and Mu Naw was extremely relieved that the hospital stay was covered by Medicaid. Her relationship with Jane reminded Mu Naw that she could never rely on her own mother.

Mu Naw and Saw Ku married for love. For the sake of their children, they initiated the resettlement process. For two years, they participated in interviews and told their stories. In the process, they learned things about one another’s past.